The Evolution of Divinity – From What Is Enlightenment Magazine – by Dr. Marc Gafni

A New Spiritual Vision for Our Time

Reprinted from What Is Enlightenment Magazine

Abstract:

Marc Gafni met Andrew Cohen through a mutual friend and student of Andrew’s in 2005. Andrew Cohen invited Marc Gafni to visit and teach in Andrew’s community to his senior students in Lenox, Massachusetts. Marc Gafni visited and taught and dialogued with Andrew Cohen in Fox Hollow several times. As a result of their shared interest in evolutionary spirituality, Marc and Andrew planned a teaching week and retreat in Israel together, which was hosted by Marc Gafni. This teaching week and weekend took place in late December 2005. During this period of time, this article was published in What Is Enlightenment.

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The Evolution of Divinity – From What Is Enlightenment Magazine – by Dr. Marc Gafni2023-06-18T07:54:28-07:00

The Evolutionary World Spirituality Unique Self Vision of Dharma, Lineage, Students, and Teachers (by Kerstin Tuschik)

From the abstract:

In this article, I want to elaborate on the concept of “Dharma, Lineage, Transmission, and the Student-Teacher Relationship” in the specific way these words are used in my World Spirituality community and specifically by the initiating teacher of the community, Dr. Marc Gafni. Marc has infused the word “Dharma” with a series of meanings which have become self-evident in our community. Because Marc has not yet written about his expansion upon the meaning of “Dharma” for the broader public, I have felt that it is necessary to do so.

The Unique Self teachings that Marc has brought into the conversation are now changing the way that enlightenment is experienced and taught around the world. In my perception, the power, love and clarity of his teaching and transmission of Unique Self enlightenment has been so profound that now, in many enlightenment circles around the world, Unique Self thinking under a host of names is virtually a given. And that although ten years ago, Unique Self Dharma was still unheard of in the enlightenment world. While this (often unconscious) adoption of the core teaching of Gafni’s Unique Self Dharma is an excellent achievement and a necessary and gorgeous step for a cogent meme to become mainstream, I find it—for the many reasons that I will discuss in this article—very important to give honor to Marc Gafni’s original inseminating work and transmission as well as to the lineage(s) that he is part of and whose wisdom he is embodying and evolving.

I, myself, have come a long way from studying cognitive concepts and maps, methods of self-transformation and healing, to studying and embodying a comprehensive dharma. The insights and discoveries I want to share with you in this article have also occurred along with the transition from being a devoted and passionate student of the Dharma to becoming more and more a teacher and lineage-holder of the Dharma myself. Specifically, I have been teaching, sharing and representing Unique Self Dharma in the German-speaking world, which in turn has deepened my own studies. So, let me share the frameworks that I have encountered and that have worked or not worked for me in relation to the teacher-student-relationship and in relation to the “Dharma.” These discernments are I believe critical for what my teacher Dr. Marc Gafni calls the “post-postmodern integral reconstruction project” which is so profoundly needed in our post-postmodern world.

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The Evolutionary World Spirituality Unique Self Vision of Dharma, Lineage, Students, and Teachers (by Kerstin Tuschik)2023-06-18T07:56:05-07:00

Shalom Mountain Wisdom School: A Report by Dr. Zachary Stein

Shalom Mountain Wisdom School: A Report by Dr. Zachary Stein2023-06-22T08:06:04-07:00

A Gift from the CIW Board Retreat 2017: Introduction by Dr. Marc Gafni: Never Bypass the Personal

Enjoy this beautiful introduction and story by Dr. Marc Gafni from our 2017 CIW Board Retreat:

The Story of Levi Isaac of Berdichev Told by Dr. Marc Gafni

from the book Your Unique Self  by Dr. Marc Gafni

When you fail to hold the personal, you may begin to engage in manipulation or possibly even psychological abuse. When you begin to see yourself as aligned with the process, which was the great teaching of Hegel, you may inadvertently give birth to the worst evils of Fascism, Communism, and Nazism, all of which were very heavily influenced by Hegel’s teaching that demanded that the individual must awaken and identify with the great evolutionary process of divine unfolding in absolute spirit. In Hegel’s powerful clarion call to align with the ecstatic impulse of historically unfolding evolutionary God, the holiness of the individual was somehow crushed in all the grand rhetoric, with devastating results for God and humans. The process must always remain personal.

For me it was always the Hasidic master Levi Isaac of Berdichev who radically reminded me of the primacy of the personal even when in the throes of evolutionary ecstasy. Levi Isaac was once leading the prayers at the close of Yom Kippur services. Yom Kippur is a fast day and the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar. The twilight hours at the end of the fast are filled with potency. According to the evolutionary mystics of Kabbalah, the enlightened prayer leader, during that time may potentially enter the virtual source code of reality and effect a tikkun; that is, effect a momentous leap in the evolution of consciousness for the sake of all sentient beings, in all generations. This is precisely what Levi Isaac—greatest of all enlightened evolutionary prayer leaders—was doing on that Yom Kippur. Night had already fallen, the fast was officially over, but the ecstasy of Levi Isaac was rippling through all the upper worlds. All beings held their breath in awe of the evolutionary power of Levi Isaac’s consciousness. All of reality was pulsating with him towards an ecstatic evolutionary crescendo. Just as the great breakthrough was about to happen at the leading edge, Levi Isaac spotted out of the corner of his eye an old man who was thirsty. The fast had been very long and the old man needed to drink. So in the midst of his ecstasy, Levi Isaac brought the whole evolutionary process to a halt. He immediately ended the fast and personally brought the old man a drink of water.

A Gift from the CIW Board Retreat 2017: Introduction by Dr. Marc Gafni: Never Bypass the Personal2023-09-12T09:54:34-07:00

Blessed by Everything – Video by Marc Gafni

Blessed by Everything – Video by Marc Gafni2023-06-22T08:06:04-07:00

7 Dharma Quotes for Living an Awakened Life

7 Dharma Quotes for Living an Awakened Life2023-06-22T08:06:05-07:00

A Special Gift from Our First Live Sacred Retreat: Truth and Laughter

Enjoy this beautiful excerpt on Truth and Laughter from our recent Sacred Retreat.

Register for Evolutionary Church Every Saturday 9-10 am PT Online
A Special Gift from Our First Live Sacred Retreat: Truth and Laughter2023-06-19T09:41:21-07:00
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